FILM · 2022 · USA
A Man Called Otto
20 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (20)
- #001
Young Otto is played by Truman Hanks, Tom Hanks's son, who was 26 years old during principal photography.
- #002
In the scene with the cars belonging to Otto and Reuben, Tom Hanks's face was digitally de-aged to make him appear in his mid-thirties. To create a digital plan for this effect, the VFX team used footage and stills from The 'Burbs (1989).
- #003
The original Swedish film adaptation was nominated for two Oscars and became the highest-grossing foreign film in the United States in 2016.
- #004
The song playing when Otto pulls up to the BMW playing rap is "White Boy Summer" by Chet Hanks, Tom Hanks's son.
- #005
The pastry eaten at the café, which Otto calls a "Swedish éclair" to Marisol, is called a semla. It is a nod to the Swedish origins of the novel the film is based on. However, the book does not mention pastries. It is also not widely available in Pittsburgh, where the American film is roughly set. In Sweden, semla is in fact a seasonal food, generally available only between December and Easter, because it is a treat that comes from Christian tradition and is eaten before Lent.
- #006
The cat that plays the stray character Otto encounters in the film is named "Smeagol."
- #007
Tom Hanks has a passion for mechanical typewriters, as also seen in the documentary California Typewriter (2016), in which he appears. He had one included in this film for the preparation of the "goodbye" suicide note.
- #008
Fredrik Backman's book and the Swedish film were titled A Man Called Ove.
- #009
At 26:50, when young Otto (Truman Hanks) buys a train ticket to Pittsburgh, the reflection of older Otto (Tom Hanks) can be seen on the metal plate on the counter where the ticket is placed.
- #010
Tom Hanks's wife Rita Wilson not only produced this film but also wrote the theme song "'Til You're Home" and performed it with Colombian singer Sebastián Yatra for the soundtrack. The music video can be seen in the DVD's special features.
- #011
Otto Anderson states plainly that he does not like automatic transmissions, but most of the cars he owned before the Chevy Cruze (shown in flashbacks) were not sold with a gear stick (or manual/standard transmission outside the United States). Ironically, Otto's name is pronounced exactly like auto, as in automatic (transmission).
- #012
Otto's clothes and wedding ring are very large (he was not eating). When Otto relives memories of himself in his twenties (played by his real-life son Truman Hanks), we can briefly see a reflection of the older, present-day Otto.
- #013
This is the second film in which Hanks's characters' suicides were cut because they were too much for the structure; the first was Cast Away.
- #014
At 10:00, Otto yells at the UPS driver for parking on a road he does not pass. "Other people don't do it, men in white trucks, why are you always brown men, I don't mean it racially," he says. This is a nod to FedEx, the company Tom Hanks's character worked for in Cast Away.
- #015
The Silverado truck Otto buys is a fully electric Silverado EV.
- #016
Although the barriers at the entrance to Otto's street play an important part in the story, there are no barriers at all at the location used for the street (Gilliland Place, Bellevue, Pennsylvania, USA), according to Google Street View.
- #017
Mariana Treviño (Marisol in the film) voiced herself in the film's Latin Spanish dub. This same dub track was also used for the film's Castilian Spanish dub, so her character's heavy Mexican accent was preserved for the dub released in Spain; this helped not only to save money but also to preserve Marisol's background, which might have been lost if she had been voiced by a voice actor from Spain.
- #018
Otto Anderson attempts suicide 4 times over the course of the film. The first is by hanging, the second by carbon monoxide poisoning (Otto attaches a hose to his car's exhaust), the third by being hit by a vehicle (a train), and the fourth with a firearm (a shotgun).
- #019
Tom Hanks and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo also appeared together in "Greyhound."
- #020
The cardiologist Marisol speaks to when she takes Otto to the hospital after his first collapse (due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) is named Mira, which shares the same Spanish word as the third-person singular present-tense indicator "look" (as in "look over there!"). This is either a coincidental nod to her because Marisol is Mexican and her native language is Spanish, or, more slyly, a "look" reference to the large bulge in her belly, reminding viewers (especially Spanish speakers) that the birth of her third child is approaching.
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